Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists (82 page)

  5
  J. Ginges and S. Atran, (2009), “Noninstrumental Reasoning over Sacred Values: An Indonesian Case Study.” In D. Ross, D. Bartels, C. Bauman, L. Skitka, and D. Medin (eds.),
Psychology of Learning and Motivation,
vol. 50,
Moral Judgment and Decision Making.
San Diego: Academic Press.

  6
  In March 2009, I mentioned to then Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni that leaders in Gaza had said to me, “Sharon gave us [Hamas] Gaza by humiliating Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] and not even giving him a fig leaf of credit for Israel leaving.” Livni responded: “Yes, I told Sharon at the time that we should have made a symbolic gesture to Abbas, like giving him the keys to Gaza City when we withdrew. I don’t know if Abbas would have accepted the keys to Gaza, or anything from Israel, but it was a mistake not to have made a symbolic gesture to him.”

  7
  In March 2009, during conversations between a delegation from the World Federation of Scientists and Hamas leaders, Ahmed Yusef, political adviser to the leadership in Gaza, praised President Obama for a recent public gesture of friendship and respect to the Iranian people. Yusef stressed that similar “symbolic gestures” could break ground for talks between parties in the Middle East conflict, including Hamas—an idea that Yusef said he passed on in a letter to Obama through Senator John Kerry. When a member of the WFS delegation asked Yusef how this interest in symbolic gestures came about, Yusef referred to our work.

  8
  Ibid.

  9
  S. Sachdeva and D. Medin (2009), “Group Identity Salience in Sacred Value Based Cultural Conflicts: An Examination of Hindu-Muslim Identities in the Kashmir and Babri Mosque Issues.” In
Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci),
Amsterdam.

10
  M. Dehghani, R. Iliev, S. Sachdeva, S. Atran, J. Ginges, and D. Medin (2009), “Emerging Sacred Values: The Iranian Nuclear Program.”
Judgment and Decision Making
4:550–53.

11
  R. Cohen (2009), “The U.S.-Iran Triangle.”
New York Times,
September 28.

12
  H. Jaseb and F. Dahl (2009), “Iran Signals No Compromise on Nuclear Issue,” Reuters, September 12, www.reuters.com/article/idUSLA38110920090912.

13
  S. Begley (2010), “When Nukes Become Sacred.”
Newsweek,
January 8. www.newsweek.com/id/229865.

14
  S. Atran (2009), “To Beat Al Qaeda, Look to the East.”
New York Times,
December 13.

15
  S. Atran and A. Norenzayan (2004), “Religion’s Evolutionary Landscape.”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
27: 713–70.

16
  Conversation with S. Atran, Security Forces Officers Club, Riyadh, February 23, 2008.

17
  S. Atran (2006), “Is Hamas Ready to Deal?”
New York Times,
August 17.

18
  S. Atran, R. Axelrod, and R. Davis (2007), “Give Palestine’s Unity Government a Chance.” Huffington Post, March 7. www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-atran-robert-axelrod-and-richard-davis/give-palestines-unity-go_b_42882.html.

19
  S. Atran (1989), “The Surrogate Colonization of Palestine, 1917–1939.”
American Ethnologist
16:716–44.

20
  Fateh Constitution (1964). web.archive.org/web/20070607150221/www.fateh.net/e_/files/01/68/07/f016807/public/constitution.htm.

21
  The expression “a land without people for a people without land” was first popularized by Israel Zangwill a century ago. Zangwill’s point was that Palestine’s Arab population was not then a distinct nationality, not that there were no persons living there.

22
  J. Alderdice (2007), Interview with Scott Atran at Fifth Meeting, Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism, World Federation of Scientists, Erice, Italy, May 1.

23
  R. Eckstein (1993), “Ping-Pong Diplomacy: A View from Behind the Scenes.”
Journal of American-East Asian Relations
2:327–40.

24
  R. Khouri (2007), “A Different History Lesson.”
International Herald Tribune,
August 3.

25
  I. Lustick (2006), “Negotiating Truth: The Holocaust,
Lehavdil,
and
al-Nakba.” Journal of International Affairs
60:51–80.

26
  In the mid-1990s, Isaac Ben Israel led a team that contracted with the Chinese to sell American AWACS (spy plane) technology for about half a billion dollars. But toward the end of Bill Clinton’s tenure, under pressure from Congress, the United States insisted that Israel cancel the deal. The Chinese were furious. They demanded that the Israelis pay them back, plus $2.5 billion for breach of contract—five times the original value of the agreement—or China would never deal with Israel again. “You know we had offers to help the Syrians and the Iranians on their weapons systems, but we thought you were our friend,” Ben Israel recalls the Chinese as saying. Ben Israel asked then-prime minister Ehud Barak what to do. Barak told him: “Do anything except pay the 2.5 billion, because we don’t have it.” So Ben Israel went to Singapore, which has close relations with Israel, because Singapore’s leaders know the Chinese well. “It’s a matter of respect,” said the Singaporeans, “of not losing face. You must apologize and mean it; say it was entirely your fault and that those involved on the Chinese side were wronged. Then they may be much more willing to come to a mutually acceptable compromise.” Ben Israel reported back to Barak, who called in his advisers. Lawyers from the Israeli Ministry of Justice adamantly advised against making any such apology, for fear that Israel would be setting itself up for endless lawsuits. “Well, what do you think?” Barak asked Ben Israel. Ben Israel answered that Israel should apologize, which Israel did, and the Chinese settled for $25 million from Israel as a token of contrition—1 percent of the original sum demanded.

27
  A. Gresh (2001), “The Middle East: How the Peace Was Lost.”
Le Monde diplomatique,
English language edition, September. http://mondediplo. com/2001/09/01middleeastleader.

28
  I. Lustick, “Negotiating Truth.”

29
  People’s Daily Online (2006), “Japan PM’s Shrine Visit Sparks Anger in China.” August 16.

30
  N. Onishi (2007), “Japan’s ‘Atonement’ to Former Sex Slaves Stirs Anger.”
New York Times,
April 25.

31
  J. Garromone (2004), “Rumsfeld Accepts Responsibility for Abu Ghraib.” American Foreign Press Service, May 7.

32
  E. Barkan (2006), “The Worst Is Yet to Come: Abu Ghraib and the Politics of Not Apologizing.” In E. Barkan and A. Karn (eds.),
Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

33
  International Committee of the Red Cross (2007),
ICRC Report on the Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody.
February, www.nybooks.com/icrc-report.pdf.

34
  U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (2008), Statement of Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Diane E. Beaver, June 17. http://armed-services.senate.gov/ statemnt/2008/June/Beaver%2006-17-08.pdf.

35
  J. Dower (1999),
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.
New York: W. W. Norton.

36
  Interview with Dominique de Villepin (2005), “Il n’y a de communauté que nationale.”
La Vie
(Paris), no. 314, February 24, p. 16.

37
  O. Roy (2004),
Globalized Islam.
New York: Columbia University Press.

38
  G. Allison and P. Zelikow (1999),
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis,
2nd ed. New York: Longman.

39
  J. Gaddis (1995),
Strategies of Containment.

40
  S. Atran (2006), “The Moral Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”
Washington Quarterly
29:127–47.

41
  B. Hoffman and G. McCormick (2004), “Terrorism, Signaling, and Suicide Attack.”
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
27:243–81.

42
  T. Schelling (1960),
The Strategy of Conflict.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

43
  J. March and J. Olsen (1989),
Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics.
New York: Free Press.

44
  R. Davis (2007), interview with S. Atran, Washington, DC, March 28.

45
  A. Varshney (2003), “Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Rationality.”
Perspectives on Politics
1: 85–99.

46
  R. Goodin (1980), “Making Moral Incentives Pay.”
Policy Sciences
12: 131–45.

47
  ABCNewsOnline (2007), “Ahmadinejad Under Fire for Embracing His Teacher,” ABC News online, May 2. www.abc.net.au/news/news-items/200705/s1912815.htm.

48
  A. Hoffman, J. Gillespie, D. Moore, K. Wade-Benzoni, L. Thompson, and M. Bazerman (1999), “A Mixed-Motive Perspective on the Economics Versus Environmental Debate.”
American Behavioral Scientist
42:1254–76.

49
  P. Tetlock (2003), “Thinking the Unthinkable: Sacred Values and Taboo Cognitions.”
Trends in Cognitive Science
7:320–24.

50
  F. Lazarus (1999),
Black Hills, White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus the United States, 1775 to the Present.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

51
  S. Roberts (2005), “Revisiting a Killing Field in Poland.”
New York Times,
November 4.

52
  In an experiment, psychologist Douglas Medin asked people if they would leave him their wedding ring so that he could have a jeweler make an exact material copy, and then they could choose either the original or the copy (without being told which is which) plus a significant cash bonus. In the experiment, which we’ve replicated, most people refuse the bargain. Those who trade are usually in the process of getting a divorce or are foreign spouses of Americans from cultures in which rings are not symbols of the sanctity of marriage.

53
  J. Baron and M. Spranca (1997), “Protected Values.”
Organizational Behavioral and Human Decision Processes
70:1–16.

CHAPTER 22: BAD FAITH

  1
  S. Harris (2004),
The End of Faith: Religion, Terrorism, and the Future of Reason.
New York: W. W. Norton.

  2
  D. Dennett (2005),
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.
New York: Viking Adult.

  3
  C. Hitchens (2007),
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
New York: Twelve.

  4
  R. Dawkins (2006),
The God Delusion.
New York: Houghton Mifflin.

  5
  S. Atran (2003), “Genesis of Suicide Terrorism.”
Science
199:1534–39, supplementary online materials.

  6
  S. Harris (2006),
Letter to a Christian Nation.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 44, 52.

  7
  M. Sageman (2008),
Leaderless Jihad.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

  8
  As Stalin reportedly said when warned of Catholic opposition to his power lust: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Now, one could argue, with some reason, that communism and other forms of evangelical atheism are really religions after all: dogmatic in their belief in the transcendent forces and direction of human history, and often mercilessly cruel to sinners who refuse to see the light. One could then simply redefine “atheist” as “non-dogmatic” so as to exclude the obvious counterexamples, as the Four Horsemen do. For example, the Horsemen claim that Hitler was raised and remained Catholic. But as the diaries of his equally “Catholic” culture and propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, indicate, Nazi leaders saw themselves as “apostates” motivated by “anti-Semitism [as] the focal point of our spiritual struggle.” As for the Church, wrote Goebbels: “It is clear nonsense for a spiritual and ecclesiastical power to meddle so much in political and military questions.” At the end of the war, after elimination of the Jews, “we shall see to it that … such attempts at interference are rendered impossible.” (J. Goebbels [1948],
The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943.
New York: Doubleday, pp. 8, 166, 359.)